The Wolf of Wall Street Review

Wolf of Wall Street Rating: 3.67/5From All the reviews on the webShowing 8 Reviews

The Wolf of Wall Street Review

Ratings:4/5 Review By:Rajeev MasandSite: Masand's Verdict ( CNN IBN)

The Wolf of Wall Street is consistently engaging, but is it meant to celebrate this reckless pursuit of wealth, or serve as a cautionary tale against it? That’s for each one of us to decide. To give credit to Scorsese, he’s made a film that works on more than one level, and a film that inspires debate. I’m going with four out of five for The Wolf of Wall Street. In their fifth collaboration, Scorsese and DiCaprio once again do their best work together.

Straight up, The Wolf of Wall Street (TWOWS) is one of the most amusing and appalling films around. Martin Scorsese paints a compelling portrait of Wall Street, that metaphor for American ability and greed, sending your head spinning with its ferocity. Leonardo DiCaprio stands foreground, delivering fresh-faced-with-wicked-eyes with the kick of a cocktail. DiCaprio excels as Jordan, a middle-class boy dreaming dollar signs, landing on Wall Street. Note: You may not like this movie if you don't like films with swearing and s**.

Despite the length, the first half is racy and fast enough to keep you hooked from the very first frame. The writing is smart and dialogues are laced with wit and sarcasm. The humour is over the top with s**ual innuendoes flung across the room at every given chance. Watch it for the deadly Scorsese-Leonardo combination that creates magic each time these two team up. The Wolf of Wall Street is a good three hours spent at the theatre.

If The Wolf of Wall Street were a person, I probably wouldn’t turn around to give them a second look. It is rather shocking and extremely heartbreaking to see this coming from a director I admire so much. My only solace while enduring this film was the foot-tap-worthy background score.It looks good and it sounds good too -- The Wolf of Wall Street can really please the senses, it seems. Just remember to forget your humanity for a while.

The Wolf of Wall Street will do two things to you: 1) It makes you laugh till your sides hurt, and 2) It makes you take a shower asap. Because it’s a rare movie that makes you laugh and makes you feel guilty for laughing. Debauchery has never been captured so sharply on screen, and The Wolf of Wall Street is a three hour long drunk story, cautionary tale and horror movie rolled into one. It’s spectacular. It’s repulsive. It’s the Goodfellas of modern day gangsters (investment bankers) and it’s Scorsese’s best since The Departed.

It’s a zeitgeist film, of course, given all that has happened on Wall Street and the rest of the world in recent times, but it’s also a study of addiction, to money, drugs, s** and the kind of outré hedonism that now seems outright obscene. Scorsese’s real interest seems to be in creating a world in which nihilism rules, fun is experienced in capital letters (one character nostalgically evokes the sixties) and drugs are the key to life. The 176-minute movie is as self-contained and insular as the book that inspired it.

The Wolf of Wall Street is enormously entertaining at times and on the whole, it doesn't struggle to hold your attention although after a point, the drug use loses its edge of deviant thrill and starts feeling repetitive. If you're appalled by the vacuousness and superficiality of Belfort's world, then perhaps you're seeing the ambiguities that one would expect of a Scorcese film. Unfortunately, it's difficult to figure out whether we're imagining them or if they're actually there.

For now, the results don’t seem as accomplished as they were aimed to be. Frequently brimming with black humor, the film does tend to bore at times for two reasons; first is the length of the movie which is close to three hours (still debatable) and secondly, because of the singular path of self gratification Jordan follows in the film. The background score is brilliant, and it selectively does justice to the movie. Still, The Wolf of Wall Street is a whole-hearted attempt which loses the energy and purpose at times, but finally manages to hold itself together.

4
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THE WOLF OF WALL STREET: Scorsese’s Most entertaining Satirical take rides high on performances! [4/5]

Martin Scorsese’s THE WOLF OF WALL STREET is about ambitions. Ambitions that reject & rebel to be chained in with age-old rules and conventional regulations! Ambitions that don’t always look for permissible means but are ready to hop on anything, black or white, to get there on the top! And what could be the better example than the roller-coaster trippy life of American motivational speaker and a controversial stockbroker in the past, Mr. Jordon Belfort.

Based on his book of the same name, THE WOLF OF WALL STREET is a biographical satire on how a man of big appetite to make money by all means lands him into all glossy-no soul world of drugs and sex but the charm of this black-comedy lies in talking about serious things in a not- so-serious way and without being sober and apologetic.

In the very first few minutes of the film, Jordon in his twenties [played by the terrific Leonardo DiCaprio] is introduced to the real way of functioning in the boisterous world of stock market by his very first coach Mark Hanna [Extremely impressive Matthew McConaughey as the scene-stealer]. Cocaine & hooker as he says, is the road to success in this game of running numbers on digital panels.

Soon after losing his job in a national financial calamity, Jordon finds himself a job in a remote investment agency. With his neighboring salesman [the hilariously funny Jonah Hill] and a group of friends who can sale nothing but drugs, Jordon opens his own firm with a working culture that might give you an idea of being at a big house party with booze, weed and girls. Point is simple; make money and lots of money to blow it hard to bring heaven in earth.

THE WOLF OF WALL STREET is one of the best satires I have seen, on the business world. The way Mark Hanna describes Jordon the unsaid rules of the game in Wall Street in New York, it’s gritty, witty, real and a fun to learn. In similar situations, when Jordon teaches his workforce how to fish the money from riches, it forces you to almost split your sides with laughter. Irrespective of the fact that you might not be very friendly with the ‘typical’ glossary of stock market & investment services and a not-so-favorable 3 hour of duration, you will never feel short of ROFL [Rolling On Floor Laughing] moments even for once. Thanks to the sharp writing and a smart screenplay that beautifully jumbles between voice-overs and audio-visuals.

THE WOLF OF WALL STREET also marks applause worthy performances from more than one actor. Scenes extend to longer period with same settings and same set of actors but the performances never allow you to lose your valuable interest in the plot. DiCaprio has been a blue-eyed boy of Scorsese and he proves his worth in every scene. Most of the times, he is there as the motivational speaker so he speaks and speaks a lot but without being a blabber. Watch out for him where he’s temporarily paralyzed by excessive drug intake and desperately want to fight with the situation. Outstanding!

Of the rest, it’s Jonah Hill who brings maximum laughter moments with his own straight face humor. Matthew McConaughey is there for just a couple of scenes but he overwhelms you in just those few. THE ARTIST fame Jean Dujardin plays a Swiss bank official in a delightful cameo. You also should not miss noticing the real Jordon Belfort playing the show-host in the very last scene.

To sum up things well, it is Martin Scorsese’s one of the most entertaining work for sure. Performances, writing and a skilled direction make it a must-watch for plenty of good laughs. Only if the duration could get shorter by 15-20 minutes, it would have been an overwhelming experience. Nevertheless, it is just awesome! [4/5]

I agree with Gaurav. Its an excellent film with a classic Direction by Sir Martin Scorsese and wonderful screen presence of Leo Dicaprio & Jonah Hill. This movie ia a bit long but i assure you will not get bore. Some of the scenes are really breath taking and funny.

The movie is suitable for Adults only for its language, drug abuse and some of the steamy scenes.Background score is just excellent.Highly EntertainingGo for it

This movie is for the curious teenagers whose parents are not allowing them to watch this film or for die hard Martin Scorsese fans who think he can never go wrong, or for perverts who do not get enough of watching soft porn. Graphic sex, epic drug binges, and debauchery are so so so over-the-top and boring in this film. Its shot very well though. The white-collar mafia story does have a tinge of originality and intrigue. But there's no inner arc no inner turmoil. The characters just go on and on from one extravagant act to another. If this was a Michael Bay film everyone would have bashed it. but oh.. its Martin Scorsese.. the man who made such excellent films like Goodfellas and Shutter Island.. how could he go wrong.!